Many marketing transformations seem to go really well until the leads start flowing to sales and get rejected, often because sales has a different idea of what leads are worth the effort and which ones are not.

As soon as you start to talk about transforming a workforce, most people immediately think about recruiting new employees. However, the bigger issue is retraining the employees you intend to keep — and keeping their skills sharp over the long term.

Just like a Portuguese Man-of-War, an ‘organization’ is not a single organism but actually a collection of departments that have to work together in order to flourish so your marketing transformation has to consider all the parts.

Reliance on humans means the transformation team has to take extra care to ensure that everyone involved understands the overall picture and where every single element of the change fits into the bigger picture, that we’re all in one big boat together.

The most complicated and, from a financial perspective, the most expensive part of any transformation is always the people. Just be aware that the people who might be the best candidates for replacement or retraining might not be who you think they are.